Tony Cox (South African musician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tony Cox | |
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 Tony Cox performing at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, South Africa, in June 2005. He is pictured playing a long scale length acoustic baritone guitar custom made for him by Ian Caw.
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| Background information | |
| Born | January 24, 1954 Redcliff, Zimbabwe |
| Genre(s) | South African fingerstyle, Afro-Beat, World Music |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar |
| Years active | Early 1970's - present |
| Associated acts | With Steve Newman |
| Website | [1] |
Tony Cox (born 24 January 1954) is a Zimbabwean born guitarist and composer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. A master of the Fingerpicking style of guitar playing, he has won the SAMA (South African Music Awards) for best instrumental album twice. His music incorporates many different styles including classical, blues, rock and jazz, while keeping an African flavour.
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[edit] Early life
Tony Cox was born in a small mining town called Redcliff in Zimbabwe, what was then Rhodesia. He began playing the guitar at age nine, learning Hawaiian guitar from Archie Perreira. After Tony and his family moved to Cape Town, he began to study classical guitar at age nineteen.
[edit] Career
Born in Zimbabwe and now residing in Johannesburg South Africa, multiple award-winning acoustic guitarist Tony Cox has become a veritable icon of the instrument in his own country. And now the guitarist seems to be working his particular six-string magic further a-field. As of late, he has undertaken regular forays into Europe and Canada and has seen a loyal fan-base begin to develop in the UK, Germany and Canada.
When he was just nine years old Tony Cox began, incredibly, learning and playing the Hawaiian guitar in what was then Rhodesia. This was brought about by one Archie Pereira arriving from Lisbon and for reasons unknown decided to settle in the backwater of Kwe-Kwe, a town 20 miles away from Cox’s mining-town birthplace, Redcliff.
In his teens and after Archie disappeared back to Lisbon, Cox changed to a conventional guitar style and later studied the classical guitar for an intensive 2-year period. In 1969 the family left Rhodesia to settle in Cape Town South Africa and it is here the young guitarist really started to absorb and assimilate the multi-textured rhythms and facets of the rich, indigenous music of his upbringing and surroundings.
He began to compose his own music early and immediately charged it with the African imagery that is very much a part of this unique guitar player’s world perspective. Using all the finger-style techniques he had absorbed over the years from such greats as Leo Kottke and Bert Jansch, Cox honed and developed a style all his own. With the rigorous precision of classical technique juxtaposing the loose, laid-backed delivery of a master at work, Cox’s music tumbles out at you, hitting your tapping feet with its solid groove and taking your heart and mind on harmonic journeys they have not been on before. Tony Cox on-stage is as warm and engaging with his audience as he is off-stage. Telling stories and anecdotes, he draws a person in and you find yourself listening really closely to a tune you may never have heard before and then being punched in the solar-plexus at the power and delivery of that tune.
Besides being a powerful solo performer Cox has collaborated and recorded with many other musicians to produce two award-winning albums and a string of nominations. ‘China’ (SA slang for friend) is just such an album. He recorded it in 2002 featuring many of the cream of SA musicians and is a great example of Cox’s ability to work beyond the confines of solo guitar playing. The album won the ‘best instrumental’ category at the 2003 SAMA awards. He has very recently received his 6th nomination for the 2008 SAMA awards for his new release, ‘Blue Anthem’ and has walked away with the award, his third, this last weekend.
In late September 2007 Cox performed at the ‘Open Strings International Guitar Festival’ in Osnabrueck, Germany up alongside the finest guitar players in the world. Shortly after he completed a 16-theatre tour of Canada and the USA and has been booked for a string of summer festivals in those countries for 2008.
[edit] Discography
- 101 Ways to use an acoustic guitar (1983) with Steve Newman
- Out of Line (1984) Out of Print Cassette
- Planetarium Live (c. 1989) with Steve Newman - Out of Print Cassette
- In to nation (198?) Out of Print LP
- Alive at Le Plaza (1993) with Steve Newman - Out of Print Cassette
- Cool friction (1996)
- Looking for Zim (1998)
- Matabele ants (2001)SA Award-Winner
- The Aquarian Quartet - Live (2002)
- China (2003)SA Award-Winner
- About time (2002) with Steve Newman
- Tony Cox - In Concert at the Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts (2005)
- Blue Anthem featuring Benguela (2007)SA Award-Winner
